Back home in Mali, Salif Keita is treated like a king. In a land of great singers and musicians, he is still regarded as the finest vocalist of all, and his soaring, thrilling voice blasts out from shops and taxis across the capital, Bamako, where he is based. In the west it is rather different. He was rightly regarded as a major performer back in the 1980s, when he released his best-known album Soro, but since then his jazz-rock and funk excursions and collaborations with the likes of Joe Zawinul and, more recently, Vernon Reid have led to complaints that the "golden voice of Africa" was losing out to an apparent obsession with western fusion work.

This is the album that puts all of that right: a largely acoustic, back-to-the-roots set that is unquestionably his finest album since Soro, and that should re-establish his position as one of the great singers of the world. The backing is provided largely by acoustic guitar and percussion, with occasional echoes of anything from accordion to Malian traditional instruments such as the ngoni. Against this easy, rolling backdrop, Keita shows off his intimate, delicate, soulful vocals. There are none of the wild improvisational flurries that made Soro so special, but none are needed. This is a quieter, more personal set, easing from the gently stirring, passionate Yamore (in which he is joined by Cesaria Evora) to the more driving but still laid-back Madan. It has been a long time coming, but here at last is a new Keita classic. (RD)

Angelique Kidjo Black Ivory Soul (Sony Jazz) ** £13.99

When she first emerged on the African scene just over a decade ago, Angelique Kidjo seemed like a sure-fire winner. She was young and wildly energetic, she looked tremendous, and she seemed destined to place the west African state of Benin firmly on the world-music map. Since then she has moved to Brooklyn and Paris, mixed her African roots with funk, salsa and jazz, and become depressingly forgettable in the process. This new album, produced by Bill Laswell (who has worked with the likes of Mick Jagger, Herbie Hancock and Bootsie Collins), does nothing to change that. It's not bad, it's never unprofessional and it makes pleasant enough listening, but it's simply rather ordinary.

Despite the title, this is not Kidjo's grand soul album, though there are plenty of soul influences and melodies thrown in. It's her attempt at a grand Brazilian crossover set. There are appearances from the Brazilian superstar vocalist Daniela Mercury, and from assorted Brazilian guitarists and percussionists, but the result, on tracks such as Bahia, fails to match Mercury's own work. This is just an easy-listening Brazilian sing-along. Kidjo can still sing well, as she shows on the ballad Okanbale, but in trying far too hard to chase the commercial crossover market, she has become bland and boring. (RD)

Badly Drawn Boy About a Boy OST (XL) *** £13.99

In turning his hand to the score to the new Hugh Grant film, Damon Gough takes his first deliberate step into the mainstream. But Badly Drawn devotees needn't fear a lapse in his woolly-hatted indie aesthetic. Gough is still a romantic eccentric who is as content chirruping aimlessly on a flute as he is writing tinkly pop tailor-made for the leftfield-but-catchy slot in the singles chart. If anything, soundtrack work suits him, facilitating more endearing foolishness rather than less.

Faced with fewer expectations than he would be for a studio album, Gough has indulged his taste for messing about, in the elephantine horns of Rachel's Flat and the fairground calliope of Delta (Little Boy Blues), while not losing sight of what he is good at: pretty, vulnerable tunefulness, as on the beautiful Silent Sigh and Something to Talk About. There are nine songs, most of them as affecting as anything on Hour of the Bewilderbeast, and seven brief instrumentals thrown in as seasoning. Not merely a stopgap to keep appetites whetted until his next album, About a Boy stands up, very unusually for a soundtrack, in its own right. (CS)

Pop Idol The Big Band Album (S/RCA) * £13.99

Robbie Williams gets the blame for this one. Observing the success of his six million-selling Swing When You're Winning album, the perpetrators of the Pop Idol karaoke contest whipped up this spin-off, in which the 10 finalists pit youth and chirpiness against swing staples that have done nothing to deserve such treatment. Will Young, who claims to have an affinity with jazz, opens with the most tepid version imaginable of Beyond the Sea, an achingly wistful torch song whose shadow and light elude our hamster-voiced friend. Jessica Garlick's Ev'ry Time We Say Goodbye is pretty but anonymous, while Cheek to Cheek becomes, in Rosie Ribbons's jaunty hands, a tribute to Bonnie Langford.

Young aside, the boys fare slightly better: wee Gareth interjects Sinatraesque ad libs into Mack the Knife, and Darius Danesh, the only one whose voice has broken, sounds weirdly like Nat "King" Cole's younger brother on Let There Be Love. But all contenders pale beside Zoe Birkett, a 40-year-old in a 16-year-old's body, who invests Get Happy with brassy knowingness. One goodish track out of a dozen, then. Annoy Simon Cowell - boycott this nasty little cash-in. (CS)

The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion Plastic Fang (Mute) ** £14.99

Prepare yourselves for another sermon from the God-fearing, werewolf-lovin' Jon Spencer. Though Spencer kicks a brothel-creeper in Elvis's direction vocally, his aggression is closer to Jerry Lee Lewis as he tears through a rock'n'roll hymn book and conjures up mini-soundtracks to 1950s teen slasher flicks. Bullish rhythms, stabbing guitar riffs and numerous drum rolls vie for attention with Spencer's comic-book preaching and pleading shouts to "C'mon!"

The muddy, ducking-and-diving Sweet 'n' Sour and the bass-laden thrashabout of Money Rock 'n' Roll create a party atmosphere (just don't ask what's going on in the dark corners). She Said is an altogether more stylish affair, foot-stomping and anthemic; here a dog is a dawg and handclaps are obligatory. The devil-may-care attitude turns to self-pity for Killer Wolf, Spencer's voice low and tempered as he contemplates his "teenage head" and "rotten brain", with only the twanging country guitar providing some levity at the end. Elliott Smith adds gentle backing harmonies to Tore Up and Broke and Dr John some bluesy licks to Hold On, but this is Spencer's show. Yet while there is merit in his passion, Plastic Fang never leaves too much of a mark. (BC)

Sheryl Crow C'Mon, C'Mon (A & M) *** £14.99

Having got that sassy, tomboyish, million-selling country-rock sound down pat, Sheryl Crow is letting her lustrous 40-year-old locks down to have some fun. Apparently this album was recorded to fight off a temporary depression, and it must have worked. C'Mon, C'Mon invites several of her friends (Don Henley, Stevie Nicks, Lenny Kravitz and, God forbid, Gwyneth Paltrow) to musically have a few beers, shoot some pool and wave scarves to the bigger choruses. As usual, Crow sounds as if she has wandered on to an MTV set from a bawdy mid-1970s rock party. You're an Original - accompanied by fellow retro fiend Kravitz - gloriously perfects (if slightly airbrushes) that ole Stones swagger, while the more plaintive It's So Easy threatens to turn into Rod Stewart's Reason to Believe but never does.

She isn't an original, but Crow's knack with a memorable pop melody serves her very well. Diamond Road could easily be sung by Britney or Beyonce. At heart, though, Crow is an old-fashioned girl who rhymes "Jack" with "Cadillac" and, as she confides in the typically anthemic Steve McQueen, would rather be wallowing in old 45s than messing around with this new-fangled digital nonsense. Well, if it makes you happy...(DS)